through their modern eyes. They will eagerly go forward in
new paths, and we older women should regard with the most
sympathetic welcome their readiness to take up their burden.
Bat if the Church has need of the best of our younger
women, there should be no reluctance to accord them the full
responsibility which would be theirs if they were to enter secular
professions. It is difficult to understand the position of those:
who are content that women should take so large a share in the
work of the Church, but would deny them access to the councils
of the Church.
Bishop Lightfoot, commenting on certain passages in the
Epistles of S. Paul which refer to the ministry of women in the
Apostolic Church, says that “If their testimony had not been
blotted out of our English Bibles” by imperfect translation, ‘ our
English Church would not have remained so long maimed in
one of her hands.” The Gospels show us that in an age and
country which assumed the inferiority of women our Lord chose
His friends and His followers from men and women without
distinction. Women accompanied Him during His ministry.
Women were charged to be the heralds of the Resurrection to
the Apostles.
Other early Christian writings show that women occupied
an honoured place, both in the charismatic ministry, particularly
as prophetesses, and in the official ministry, If the Church had
been mindful of the Apostolic warning: ‘‘ Quench not the Spirit,
despise not prophesyings,” may be the charismatic ministry and
women’s part in it would not have been lost to the Church. Is
it possible that the stress of the times through which we are
passing may help us to recover that lost gift ?
References to the position of women in the official ministry
are very numerous, e.g., the order of deacons in New
Testament times and onwards includes both men and women.
Women presbyters are also occasionally mentioned among
the other -orders of the clergy. There is, of course, another
aspect of the subject, but it cannot be considered apart from the
social conditions which imposed certain limits to women’s work
in the Church in the early centuries and have now undergone
a profound change. Our new conditions must demand a
readjustment for which the circumstances of the ancient Church
offer no precedent, and the Holy Spirit is ever leading the
Church in untried paths.
The war which has swept off to the battlefield the most
promising of our younger men must seriously affect the supply of
clergy for years to come. And if the work of the Church is to
be maintained, much more if it is to advance, it seems that some
of the activities which have hitherto been regarded as specially
the province of the clergy will have to be carried on by women.